Monday Note + Twitter | The Guardianhttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/series/monday-note+twitter
Indexen-gbGuardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2015Sun, 02 Aug 2015 19:22:44 GMT2015-08-02T19:22:44Zen-gbGuardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2015The Guardianhttp://assets.guim.co.uk/images/guardian-logo-rss.c45beb1bafa34b347ac333af2e6fe23f.pnghttp://www.theguardian.com
Why Twitter needs a design resethttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/03/why-twitter-needs-a-design-reset
<p>Twitter is the archetype of a greatly successful service that
complacently iterates itself without much regard for changes in its
uses. Such behavior makes the service — and others like it — vulnerable
to disruptive newcomers</p><p><b>Twitter might be the smartest new media of the decade, but its user interface sucks.</b> None of its heavy users is ready to admit it for simple reason: Twitter is fantastic in <i>broadcast</i> mode, but terrible in <i>consumption</i> mode. Herein lies the distortion: most Twitter promoters broadcast tweets as much as they read them. The logical consequence is a broad complacency: Twitter is great, because its most intensive broadcasters say so. The ones who rarely tweet but use the service as a permanent and tailored news feed are simply ignored. They suffer in silence — and they are up for grabs by the inevitable disrupter.</p><p>Twitter’s integration can’t be easier. Your Tweet it from any content, from your desktop with an app accessible in the toolbar, or from your smartphone. Twitter guarantees instant execution followed by immediate gratification: right after the last keystroke, your tweet is up for a global propagation.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/03/why-twitter-needs-a-design-reset">Continue reading...</a>TwitterTechnologyMon, 03 Feb 2014 14:30:56 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/03/why-twitter-needs-a-design-resetPhotograph: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty ImagesA Twitter account on a smartphone. Photograph: Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty ImagesPhotograph: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty ImagesA Twitter account on a smartphone. Photograph: Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty ImagesFrédéric Filloux2014-02-03T14:30:56ZApple's Tim Cook leaves the D11 audience begging for … anythinghttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/jun/03/wall-street-journal-tech-conference
The Wall Street Journal tech conference's star attraction was giving nothing away, but what did people expect?<p><strong>I'm back from </strong><a href="http://allthingsd.com/category/d11/"><strong>D11</strong></a><strong>, the 11th yearly edition of the Wall Street Journal's tech conference.</strong> The conference site gives you the complete <a href="http://allthingsd.com/conferences/d/d11/about/">speaker roster</a>, commentary, and full videos of the on-stage interviews as well as demos and hallway conversations.</p><p>With such a complete and well-organised reproduction of the event, why even go?</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/jun/03/wall-street-journal-tech-conference">Continue reading...</a>TechnologyTim CookInternetAppleWall Street JournalMark ZuckerbergTwitterFacebookSheryl SandbergGoogleSmartphonesAndroidSamsungHTCiPhoneiPadLarry PageMediaMon, 03 Jun 2013 09:50:52 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/jun/03/wall-street-journal-tech-conferenceJim Watson/AFP/Getty ImagesApple CEO Tim Cook kept cool during Q&A and didn't give much away about … well, anything, at the WSJ tech conference. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty ImagesJim Watson/AFP/Getty ImagesApple CEO Tim Cook kept cool during Q&amp;A and didn't give much away about … well, anything at the WSJ tech conference. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty ImagesJean-Louis Gassée2013-06-03T09:50:52ZBarack Obama's victory shows innovation is the way forwardhttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2012/nov/12/barack-obama-old-media-victory
Ranking in search engines, aggregators, tweets and Facebook likes should be embraced as a measure of success<p><em>Legacy media suffer from a deadly DNA mutation: they've lost their appetite for competition; they no longer have the will to fight the hordes of new, hungry mutants emerging from the digital world. </em></p><p><strong>For this week's column, my initial idea was to write about Barack Obama's high-tech campaign.</strong> As in 2008, his digital team once again raised the bar on the use of data mining, micro-targeting, behavioural analysis, etc. As Obama's strategist <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-obama-campaigns-secret-weapon-geeks-12152011.html">David Axelrod suggested</a> just a year ago in Bloomberg Businessweek, when he said the 2008 campaign technology looked prehistoric. Without a doubt, mastering the most sophisticated practices played a crucial role in Obama's 6 November victory.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2012/nov/12/barack-obama-old-media-victory">Continue reading...</a>TechnologyBarack ObamaWorld newsDigital mediaSocial networkingInternetNewspapersTwitterMon, 12 Nov 2012 11:02:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2012/nov/12/barack-obama-old-media-victoryPete Souza/APBarack Obama in the Oval Office. Photograph: Pete Souza/APPete Souza/APBarack Obama in the Oval Office. Photograph: Pete Souza/APFrederic Filloux2012-11-12T11:02:00ZTwitter, Facebook and app scams: who cares about fake followers?"http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2012/feb/13/twitter-facebook-apps-scams
Preventing scams is critical for social networks – but no one seems very interested in indentifying bogus fans or followers<p><strong>Here is the latest Twitter scam I've heard this week. </strong>Consider two fictitious media, the Gazette and the Tribune operating on the same market, targeting the same demographics, competing fort the same online eyeballs (and the brains behind those). Our two online papers rely on four key traffic drivers:<br />• Their own editorial efforts, aimed at building the brand and establishing a trusted relationship with the readers. Essential but, by itself, insufficient to reach the critical mass needed to lure advertisers.<br />• Getting in bed with Google, with twin-track tactics: search engine optimisation (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization">SEO</a>), which helps climb to the top of search results page; and search engine marketing (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_marketing">SEM</a>), in which a brand buys keywords to position its ads in the best possible context.<br />• An audience acquisition strategy that will artificially grow page views as well as the unique visitor count. Some sites will aggregate audiences that are remotely related to their core product, but that will better dress them up for the advertising market (more on this in a forthcoming column).<br />• An intelligent use of social medias such Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the apps ecosystem.</p><p>Coming back to the Tribune v Gazette competition, let's see how they deal with the latter item.</p><p>One day, your &quot;influence&quot; will be measured against real followers or fans as opposed to bots-induced accounts or artificial ones. Then, brands will weep as their fan pages will be worth nothing; ad agencies will cry as well when they realise that Twitter is worth nothing.</p><p><strong><span style="color: #888888;">Adhering to guidelines on third-party marketing services</span></strong></p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2012/feb/13/twitter-facebook-apps-scams">Continue reading...</a>TechnologyTwitterFacebookAppsDigital mediaMediaMon, 13 Feb 2012 12:34:10 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2012/feb/13/twitter-facebook-apps-scamsSarah Lee/Sarah LeeFalse friends: how many of brands' Twitter followers or Facebook fans are bogus? Photograph: Sarah LeeSarah Lee/Sarah LeeTwitter Photograph: Sarah LeeFrédéric Filloux2012-02-13T12:34:10ZDatamining Twitterhttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/dec/05/monday-note-twitter
Making sense of the Twitter noise is about to get easier<p><strong>On its own, Twitter builds an image for companies; very few are aware of this fact.</strong> When a big surprise happens, it is too late: a corporation suddenly sees a facet of its business – most often a looming or developing crisis – flare up on Twitter. As always when a corporation is involved, there is money to be made by converting the problem into an opportunity: Social network intelligence is poised to become a big business.</p><p>In theory, when it comes to assessing the social media presence of a brand, Facebook is the place to go. But as brands flock to the dominant social network, the noise becomes overwhelming and the signal – what people really say about the brand – becomes hard to extract.</p><p>I have recorded literally everything over the last few months about people checking in to Starbucks. They don't need to say they're in Starbucks, they can just be inside a location that is Starbucks, it may be people allowing Twitter to record where their geolocation is. So, I can tell you the average age of people who check into Starbucks in the UK. Companies can come along and say: &quot;I am a retail chain, if I supply you with the geodata of where all my stores are, tell me what people are saying when they're near it, or in it.&quot; Some stores don't get a huge number of check-ins, but on aggregate over a month it's very rare you can't get a good sampling.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/dec/05/monday-note-twitter">Continue reading...</a>TwitterTechnologyMediaInternetSocial networkingMon, 05 Dec 2011 10:36:51 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/dec/05/monday-note-twitterJonathan Hordle/Rex FeaturesTwitter on a smartphone. Social network intelligence is poised to become a big business. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex FeaturesJonathan Hordle/Rex FeaturesTwitter on a smartphone. Social network intelligence is poised to become a big business. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex FeaturesFrédéric Filloux2011-12-05T10:36:51ZDoes Twitter have more influence than Facebook?http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/nov/07/twitter-facebook
Mark Zuckerberg's social network is still growing, but tweets have the edge in promoting news content – especially on mobile<p><strong>You hear things about Facebook. You see things.</strong> As its audience matures, a subtle shift might be under way. Of course, numbers remain staggering. Facebook is heading toward the 800 million users mark, mostly by conquering new markets. The growth is distributed as follows: Middle-East Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America grow by about 60% a year; Europe by 35% to 40%; and North America by 25%. And demographics are shifting: older people are joining in western markets, while a younger audience grows in emerging ones. More changes are under way as the internet spreads on both landlines and mobile devices: over the past three years, China added more internet users than exist in the US today. Furthermore, in the fastest growing markets, Facebook captures more than 90% of all social network traffic. So, for the near future, Facebook doesn't have a growth problem.</p><p>On mature markets, the future looks bright as well. In the US, unique users grew by 22% between June 2010 and September 2011, reaching a total of 155 million. Notably, the average time spent per person grew from 6h 2min to 7h 42min.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/nov/07/twitter-facebook">Continue reading...</a>Social mediaDigital mediaMediaTwitterFacebookTechnologyMon, 07 Nov 2011 13:07:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/nov/07/twitter-facebookJonathan Hordle/Rex FeaturesMore Twitter users use the site on mobiles than Facebook users, according to a comScore survey. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex FeaturesJonathan Hordle/Rex FeaturesTwitter on an iPhone Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex FeaturesFrédéric Filloux2011-11-07T13:07:00ZLosing value in the 'process'http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jun/20/digital-media-blogging-news-twitter
News organisations need to be more digitally engaged with their audiences ... but where is the economic value?<p><strong>Digital media zealots are confused: they mistake news activity for the health of the news business.</strong> Unfortunately, the two are not correlated. What they promote as a new kind of journalism carries almost no economic value. As great as they are from a user standpoint, live-blogging/tweeting, crowdsourcing and hosting &quot;expert&quot; blogs bring very little money – if any – to the news organisation that operates them.</p><p>Advertising-wise and on a per page basis, these services yield only a fraction of what a premium content fetches. On some markets, a blog page will carry a CPM (cost per thousand page views) of one, while premium content will get 10 or 15 (euros or dollars). In net terms, the value can even be negative, as many such contents consume manpower in order to manage, moderate, curate or edit them.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jun/20/digital-media-blogging-news-twitter">Continue reading...</a>Digital mediaInternetBloggingTwitterTechnologyNewspapersMagazinesMediaMon, 20 Jun 2011 09:59:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jun/20/digital-media-blogging-news-twitterMartin Argles/GuardianCan news organisations make crowdsourcing, tweeting, live-blogging and other digital engagement pay? Photograph: Martin Argles for the GuardianMartin Argles/GuardianCan news organisations make crowdsourcing, tweeting, live-blogging and otehr digital engagement pay? Photograph: Martin Argles for the GuardianFrédéric Filloux2011-06-20T09:59:00ZTrifling Twitterhttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/30/monday-note-twitter
In our new weekly blog analysing media, tech and business models, Frédéric Filloux of <a href="http://www.mondaynote.com/">Monday Note</a> says Twitter will increasingly be a one-to-a-few medium<p><strong>When a member of the old guard barges into their cozy backyard, the Digerati jump up and strike indignant poses.</strong> And when the intruder's point is missed, its author gets crucified. This is what happened to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Keller">Bill Keller</a>, the New York Times' executive editor, when he dared to write a column critical of Twitter. In short, Keller's well-documented piece, titled <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/magazine/the-twitter-trap.html">The Twitter Trap</a>, contends the medium's shallowness encourages superficial exchanges to the detriment of in-depth discussions. When, as a minor provocation, he tweeted &quot;<em>#TwitterMakesYouStupid. Discuss</em>&quot;, someone keyboarded back &quot;Depends who you follow&quot; – and should have added: &quot;... Depends also on <em>how</em> you follow people&quot;.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/30/monday-note-twitter">Continue reading...</a>TechnologyTwitterFacebookDigital mediaMediaSocial networkingMon, 30 May 2011 08:48:08 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/30/monday-note-twitterDominic Lipinski/PASteve Crisp/ReutersEgyptian opposition supporters near Twitter graffiti in Tahrir Square, Cairo, earlier in February. Social networking sites were used to help organise opposition demonstrations Photograph: Steve Crisp/ReutersFrédéric Filloux2011-05-30T08:48:08ZLessons from the Osama bin Laden coveragehttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/09/lessons-from-bin-laden-coverage
In our new weekly blog analysing media, tech and business models, Frédéric Filloux of <a href="http://www.mondaynote.com/">Monday Note</a> looks at how news organisations' handling of the death of the al-Quaida leader shows how they have mastered social media such as Twitter<p><strong>One after the other, the news cycles of momentous events keep reshaping the digital information landscape.</strong> The latest example of such alteration is the bin Laden story, it just set a new reference point. For traditional media, this raises the pressure yet another notch; they must rethink everything: organisations and processes – as well as business strategies.</p><p>First, a quick recap of the Sunday 1 May events (all times Eastern Standard Time; add six hours for western Europe and five hours for the UK):</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/09/lessons-from-bin-laden-coverage">Continue reading...</a>Social mediaDigital mediaNewspapersNewspapers & magazinesMediaTwitterInternetTechnologyOsama bin LadenWorld newsMon, 09 May 2011 05:54:28 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/09/lessons-from-bin-laden-coverageFrédéric Filloux2011-05-09T05:54:28Z